Ms Mairéad Forsythe:

I will begin by speaking about the national cycling office and about the investment that is needed. If I do not cover all the other issues, Ms Williams might cover some of them. We have said in our submission that there should be a national cycling office within the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport. This would be a policy-driven office that would promote cycling. Somebody at a senior level should promote all aspects of cycling and deal with all the issues that have been raised by Senator Higgins, including equality issues, schools issues, health issues and issues affecting the next generation. That person would also deal with infrastructure and would ensure the national cycling manual is brought up to date and serves its purpose.

The response we have received to our request for a national cycling office is that there is a new cycling office within the NTA. This is a design office. In effect, it is employing people to design new infrastructure, which we welcome. It appears to cover Dublin only. It may well cover the Dublin City Council area and not the other three local authority areas in Dublin. It does not cover the other cities - Galway, Limerick, Cork and Waterford - that are covered by the NTA. The NTA covers Dublin, Galway, Limerick, Cork and Waterford and does not cover all of the other towns and villages in Ireland. In our view, we need a national cycling office within the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport to drive policy.

We also believe there should be a cycling officer in each local authority. This is not just our view - it is in the national cycling policy framework, which is under review by the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport. The only local authority I know of that has a full-time cycling officer is Dublin City Council. The other day, I heard somebody in a management position in another local authority saying it was not obliged to have a cycling officer. We believe there should be a cycling officer in every local authority. We believe each officer should draw up a cycling plan for the local authority in accordance with the national cycling policy framework. That would deal with many of the issues that have been raised by Senator Higgins.

The Senator asked how we can speed up the allocation of funds. Funding can move slowly. The demand is there. The Government's climate action plan contains a commitment to allocate 10% of funding to transport. We accept that it may be a bit late to get that for 2019. It is certainly not too late to get it for a year like 2022. We need a rapid increase in the allocation of funding for cycling. We heard recently about moneys on the transport side being allocated to road projects. As far as I am aware, there has not been a similar announcement of moneys being allocated to cycling projects.

I will touch on the greenways issue. It seems to me - others can contradict me - that many local politicians are managing to secure money for greenway projects. I live in the South Dublin County Council area. We are looking for funding for a Grand Canal greenway between Lucan and the border with County Kildare. The rest of the Grand Canal greenway seems to have secured funding, but the part of it that might serve commuter cycling in the Dublin and north Kildare area has not received an allocation. It seems that in rural areas, there is a push to get allocations for greenways. It is very difficult to get anything done to encourage cycling among people who live within a mile or two of the local town or village. I think Senator Higgins mentioned such people. Very often, there are no huge barriers to the installation of safe cycling infrastructure in such areas. Many medium-sized Irish towns have little bits of cycling infrastructure, but they are not continuous.

The Senator raised a number of equality issues. She asked how we can cater for the next generation. We have to make it safe for children to walk and cycle to school. Fingal County Council has introduced a welcome "school street" initiative in Malahide. We think that kind of thing should be done in every town and village in Ireland. There should be a transport plan for every school that does something to enable children to travel to school on foot or by bicycle. We must devise safety plans around schools. Such plans may involve cars parking a few hundred yards away and the children being walked into school from there. We must start to try to get everybody, particularly young people in every school in every town and village, to walk and cycle more. The infrastructure, including the street design, should be in place to make walking and cycling seem attractive. We are talking about the next generation.

Climate change is coming at us. We need to get people out of their cars and into more climate-friendly and healthier forms of transport. Louise Williams will talk now about the equality issues.